A former Pan Am Clipper pilot and native Californian, Gaylore Rhodes Stearns, age 105, passed away on Saturday, February 9, 2019, at his home in north Fresno. Gaylore was born in the Boyle Heights area of Los Angeles, California on July 6, 1913, to Harry and Rhoda Stearns, and had one sister Audrey, born four years later.
He grew up in Muroc, a tiny settlement now part of Edwards Air Force Base, and in Fowler, California, where his father and mother established a grocery store and other businesses. His passion for flying began when a plane randomly landed to refuel at the family’s gasoline station where he worked.
With a fascination for flying, he volunteered at Chandler Field in Fresno in exchange for weekly flying lessons, soon earning a federal commercial pilot’s license, among the first issued under the 1926 Air Commerce Act. He was recruited in the 1930s by Pan American World Airways to join the small corps of elite pilots who flew the legendary Pan American Clipper Ship, one of the largest aircraft of its time. He customarily plied the trans-Atlantic route from the tip of Brazil to Lake Piso in Liberia, the shortest passage between the continents, and the northern Atlantic route via Newfoundland.
Pan Am eventually assigned him to Brownsville, Texas, where in 1941, he met the beautiful Jeannetta Hofheinz. Their first date happened to be on the day of the Pearl Harbor attack. They married three months later. During the Great War, Gaylore piloted transport planes from Montana to Alaska for the Military Air Transport Service in support of America’s allies.
After the war, he continued to fly for Pan Am and then later Western Airlines. After living in 13 cities through 1947, including New York, Edmonton, and Los Angeles, he and Jeannetta settled in Fresno, where he worked as a flight instructor at Chandler before taking a job as an account executive with the Fresno Bee, which he held until retirement.
After the couple built a home in Fresno, Jeannetta returned to school at Fresno State and earned her bachelor’s degree and teaching credential. She taught elementary students in the Fresno Public Schools over the next 22 years. Aside from his passion for flying and dedication to his expanding family, Gaylore was a diehard Fresno Bulldogs fan and an astute follower of politics and public affairs. He and Jeannetta traveled extensively in the United States and Canada and abroad, including Europe, Russia, Asia, Australia, and New Zealand.
His oldest son, Richard, a Rhodes Scholar and graduate of Stanford University, Oxford University, and Harvard Law School, is a Federal Judge in Boston. Jeff, a graduate of Tokyo’s Kokugakuin University and the University of Iowa, worked as a correspondent for Reuters in Tokyo and Singapore before settling in Honolulu where he is a college professor and accreditation liaison officer. Timothy graduated from San Jose State University, Portland State University, and Indiana University where he earned a doctorate. He currently is a professor of entrepreneurship at Fresno State and owns several businesses developing innovative teaching materials for young adults. Lisa, a graduate of Fresno State and the Medill School at Northwestern University, began her career as a television news reporter and anchor for the CBS affiliate in Knoxville, Tennessee, was a healthcare executive in marketing, and is now the Vice Chancellor of marketing and communications for the University of Tennessee Institute of Agriculture.
Gaylore’s wife Jeannetta passed away in 2012 not long after the couple celebrated their 70th wedding anniversary. Gaylore is survived by his children, Richard and his wife Patti, Jeff and his wife Tatemi, Timothy and his wife Amy, and Lisa and her husband Norman Hammitt; his beloved grandchildren, Carlo, Kira, Cailin, April, and Ryan; nieces Mona Freeman, Jennifer Earle, Melinda Chapin, and Marsha Staley; and a nephew, David Staley. Consistent with Gaylore’s wishes, in lieu of a funeral, his family will hold a memorial celebration in his honor later this spring.